WhiteHat Jr CEO Karan Bajaj departs company one year after Byju’s acquisition

On Wednesday, CEO and Founder of WhiteHat Jr Karan Bajaj announced that he was exiting his teaching start-up firm just a year after it was sold to Indian EdTech giant Byju’s for $300 million. Labelling his departure as ‘small sabbatical’ Bajaj took to his LinkedIn handle to say: "Barely 2.5 years ago, it was an idea,” as he confirmed his plans of leaving the firm. “Thanks to the power of tech, thousands of students and teachers are on the WHJ/BYJU’S FutureSchool platform, creating things with coding, maths, and now even the guitar and piano daily across the world, living the mission of kids being builders and creators versus consumers,” Bajaj said. 

Reports suggest that after Bajaj’s exit, Head of Customer Experience and Delivery at WhiteHat Jr, Trupti Mukker has been appointed as the CEO. As per an internal email floating, sent by the founder and the chief executive of Byju’s Byju Raveendran, "Karan is now ready, as we had mutually decided at the time of acquisition, to progress to the next chapter of his life”. Bajaj, who is expected to embark on a career field related to public service, will fully participate during the leadership transition period within the startup as he strongly associates with the firm’s foundation. 

“WhiteHat Jr was just an idea. Now, we're a team of 17,000+ employees and teachers in multiple countries around the world from India, Australia and UK to US and Latin America, all deeply united by our mission and values," Bajaj wrote in a post about the online school coding startup that teaches children computer programming. 

Bajaj also led Byju’s Future School

According to reports, the outgoing chief executive officer (CEO) Bajaj was also leading Byju’s Future School, one of the main elements of the world’s highest-valued teaching firm Byju’s international expansion. But as he departs, Raveendra’s email, accessed by Business Insider read: “Under Karan’s leadership, WhiteHat Jr and BYJU’S FutureSchool now enable hundreds of thousands of students in countries around the world daily to learn and create with 11,000+ deeply committed teachers.”It continued, “Having more than exceeded all our mutually outlined goals for the 1st year, Karan is now ready, as we had mutually decided at the time of acquisition, to progress to the next chapter of his life.”